Not Everyone
by Nightmare on Titan
Summary: "What do you think the last three years were about? We survived. We stared death in the face, and we lived. Not everyone can say that, can they? Some people couldn't take it and either ran, or were thrown out. Hell, some people actually died." The story of the one who died.


The ones who chose to remember him did in a light of pure goodness despite how he wasn't exactly the best human. He didn't go to church on Sunday, or prayed. He had a mouth on him like a drunken sailor, but still managed to be the biggest doormat in existence. He didn't coddle anyone when it came to reality, and wasn't naïve, but always told it like it was, no matter how harsh and bitter the truth had come to be. Eren guessed that's why he had gravitated towards him.

His name had been Orane Chercheur, and for the most part, was a blessing. Orane, or Rain as everyone called him, was a svelte boy with hair that was like dead grass, and eyes that were almost the same shade as sewer water. His skin was moderately tan, even pink in some places. His hair was almost always pulled back into a small ponytail after a particularly terrifying incident where some girl got her hair caught in the 3DMG. At first, Shadis had thought he was a girl from his hair, and his 'higher than the average male' voice and name not helping his case.

A lot of the trainees that had been from the Shingashina district and the various villages from wall Maria had been having horrible nightmare and flashbacks in the middle of training, and Rain sort of became to go-to guy for therapy. He hadn't so much as seen a titan, but some how after a few 'sessions', the nightmare and flashbacks had stopped for the most part. At first, Eren thought it was a waste of time, but the combined force of Armin and Mikasa had gotten him to go.

His thirst for the spilling of titan blood wasn't quelled, but hey, at least his nightmares stopped.

Besides his natural people ability, and coming to the correct conclusion quickly, he was a near an absolute failure as a soldier. Not nearly as bad as Dazz, but he was still pretty bad. He was a complete klutz, and would sometimes just trip while standing up. On his first few goes at the 3DMG, he had ended up tangled up in his wires and with bruised ribs. Orane had the strength for hand-to-hand combat, but none of the skill to do so, and either ended nearly getting stabbed by the fake knife, flat on his back, or panicking and punching the person fighting him. The only thing he didn't screw up in was in the classroom, and even then he was only slightly above average.

He had become really close with Eren and Marco in particular. Marco and Rain had been from the same town, and their parents had worked together, so it made sense they they would get along. But when it came to Eren, he acted like he had known him his whole life.

At first, it had bugged Eren to no ends. He was there strictly to train to kill the titans, not make new friends. But as weeks turned into months in the training camp, he couldn't help but form a bond with him as he had done with Connie, Sasha, Marco, Reiner, Bertholdt, Thomas, Mina, Dazz, and a couple other trainees.

The day it had happened was on a Sunday, the only day they had off from training. They were well into their third year of training, close to graduating. Shadis had been talking about how they were going to get tested in the Trost district soon, perhaps in a month or so. Everyone was piled into the cafeteria, which was teeming with life and energy as it always has been.

Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Reiner, Bertholdt, Jean, Marco, and Orane were all sandwiched onto two separate sides, and a few unfortunate tables were missing chairs as Sasha, Connie, Krista, and Ymir tried to fit in as well on the ends. Reiner and Jean were snickering about something, Rain was leaning a little too close to Eren as he talked with Marco and Armin about some big test in their class that was coming up with Eren butting in every so often, Sasha and Connie were trying to steal each other's food, Ymir was trying to sleep sitting up with Krista as a head rest, and everyone else was quietly trying to eat.

"Ma mom sent in some drawings from some of her patients of the armored tit'n, and they're actually pretty good." Orane reached into the satchel that almost never left his side and pulled out a small stack of papers. "These were some of the best ones. Armin, since you were there and all, could ya pick out the ones that look like it the most?" The short blond nodded and took the papers. Originally there had been 25, but after he went through, along with Eren, it was down to two.

Rain looked between the two before his eyes starting twinkling with something that was akin to realization. He let out a soft 'oh' and held up the drawing, head slightly cocked to the side.

"Ya know, Reiner kinda looks like the armored tit'n." That one statement would be his entire downfall. Not only did Reiner choke up his soup, but his tall, sweaty friend Bertl started sweating more than usual.

Eren leaned his head over onto Rain's shoulder, squinting at the picture. Orane tensed up a little, his face light up with a bright red blush. "I guess so, but it's not like Reiner can turn into it, right?" Eren snorted and shoved a piece of stew soaked bread into his mouth. "Let me guess, next you'll be saying Bertl is the colossal titan?" Said boy awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, the collar of his shirt already soaked with sweat. Orane's hand curled up at his side, and then hurried to get everything back into his bag.

"Anyways, I need to send these back to ma mom, she jus' needed some insight about what he looked like ta know which patients needed more help, see y'all later," he said before standing up. He pressed a quick peck to the top of Eren's head before freezing, and scurrying to get out of the room, tripping over at every chair that happened to cross his path.

"Huh, wonder what that was about..." Eren thought aloud. Jean snorted and leaned his chair back. Eren's teal eyes narrowed at him angrily. "What? You got something to say horse face?!"

"You know what-!" Marco put his hands on Jean's chest, who was currently trying to jump across the table to grab at Eren, while Mikasa did the same for him.

"Jean, stop it!" The freckled boy whined at his boyfriend. "You promised no more fighting with him." Jean looked at him, then at Eren. He crossed his arms, and then sat back in his chair with a huff.

"Fine, whatever," His eyes flickered over to the other who was fuming and angrily eating his food. A sick smile crept up on his face. "Orane has a crush on you."

"Jean!" Marco moaned, burying his face into his hands. "You promised him you wouldn't tell!"

"What, it's not like he was going to get it through his thick skull any time soon that Rain has the biggest crush in existence on the 'titan slayer' here." Eren, whose blood rushed to his cheeks, was stammering to come up with a response.

"But-but- I- What?" He rubbed the spot on his head that had been kissed absent mindedly. "But Rain... He does?" Gosh he felt like a right idiot. He guessed Orane was already halfway to town right now judging by how red his face was. "I-I'm going to go..." He didn't finish before his chair scraped back and he too was fleeing the mess hall. It wasn't like Eren liked him back or anything, but he couldn't exactly go without acknowledging it. Hell, maybe he might even give it a chance, wall Maria knew he deserved some normalcy and peace in his life.

Eren jogged a bit, knowing he was by the girl's dorms. He had a grin plastered to his face along with a pink stain on his cheeks. "Hey, Rain-!" he called out as he rounded the corner of the dorm building. He stopped right in his tracks when he saw the sight before him.

The total number of blades that had pinned him to the side of the building was three; one in his right thigh, another in his left hand which was pinned above his head, and the third and final one put right through his abdomen. Eren could hear the retreating footsteps of the perpetrator, but couldn't bring himself to chase after them, but only stare in shock.

Orane's eyes were wide open, unblinking. A small stream of blood trickled past his lips, dripping onto his white shirt. A trembling hand was gripped tight at the blade protruding from him, nearly slicing his fingers off when trying to get it out. The combined force of his joints going stiff and the slickness of his blood didn't warrant much progression.

"Someone get help!" Eren yelled as loud as possible. A few curious wanderers that were too far away to see the scene shrugged and carried on, while the ones that were were already gone to get the others, Shadis, and what ever first aid they could get their hands on. Someone tried pulling the blades out, and managed after falling flat on their ass several times.

There wasn't much they could do for his stomach wound, so Eren opted to hold him. By the time he was in his arms, the light had faded from his eyes, and his skin looked like rose petals scattered across freshly fallen snow.

They had all gotten a stern lecture from Shadis, except for Eren who was trying to scrub away the blood from his skin, and included things like 'once I find out which shit stain on humanity did this you better wish you were a death row inmate', and 'you're all going to be to be assigned a group because one of you is a psychopath and god help him I _will_ find out who'.

The service for him was short and bitter. His mother had come to the camp to watch his pyre burn, and get her pictures. Rain always had said she wasn't the best with expressing her emotions.

Eren had managed to place a bundle of red wild flowers on him before the fire was lit. Everyone stood around, some longer than others, before dispersing.

Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie stood in the way back, only barely seeing the top of the flames lick at the night sky. They could hardly tell the smoke apart from the darkness of the sky. "It's a shame how far people will go to cover up secrets," Annie said blandly, hands stuffed in her pockets. Reiner nodded his head.

"Shadis will wonder about the blades."

"Good. Let him."

**A/N: Sorry, I was working on this at like three in the morning.**


End file.
